Pecos – a formerly glorious pueblo

We took the Santa Fe Trail northwards to Pecos and the former Pecos pueblo – a place of significant history for over 10,000 years. It is easy to see how the Pecos Indians practiced an ancient agricultural tradition in this gentle valley. The Pecos Pueblo became a regional power in the 1400s, but after conflict with the Spanish, and later a more relaxed Spanish-Pueblo existence, disease, raids, and migration had reduced the numbers to about 300 by the late 1700s. Pecos was almost a ghost town when trade on the Santa Fe Trail was in its hey day in the 1820s. The last survivors left in 1838 and joined the Jemez Pueblo, which is still in existence today.

And these two shots from the village of Pecos itself!! I’ve never heard heard of a Cowboy Church before!